


A Pocket Full Of Ghosts

by Omorka



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Ghostbusters (Movies), Real Ghostbusters
Genre: F/M, Gen, Minor Violence, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 07:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four bustin'-related flashfics written for the 2011-12 Fandom Stockings on LJ.  Only the first one is a crossover; only the second one is shippy; only the third one has possession & minor violence.  The last one is random slice-of-life fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unspirited

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Timelord1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timelord1/gifts), [Lilly_Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_Rose/gifts), [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts), [infiniteviking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteviking/gifts).



> Chapters 1 and 3 are intended to be movie!verse and Chapters 2 and 4 are intended to be cartoon!verse, just in case the references to Slimer didn't make that clear.

"But they're not ghosts, I'm telling you," Ray shouted, waving the PKE meter over his head. "They're not ectoplasmic at all. They barely give off any psychokinetic readings, not much more than any normal living person." He shoved the meter under the mayor's nose. "See for yourself!"

The mayor carefully eased Ray's arm to the side. "I realize that this does fall into your area of expertise," he noted, "but - my constituents say they're ghosts. It's what the media have been calling them since they started appearing. I can't exactly go on TV and say 'Hey, this isn't really your dead Aunt Millie come to visit,' you know?"

"Actually, that's precisely what you need to do," Egon stated. "While they're certainly not spirit phenomena of any sort, they do clearly give off the paranormal signatures associated with a major dimensional rift." He held up a page of incomprehensible figures. "My guess would be that they're from a local pocket dimension, possibly a whole parallel world."

The mayor blinked. "Then why would they be coming to this dump, pardon my language? I mean, we got pollution, we got global warming, we got overcrowding, crime's on the rise again, and I can't even manage to fix all the potholes."

"Maybe where they're coming from is even worse," Venkman shrugged.

Winston shouldered Peter aside and leaned in, his eyes intense. "Your Honor," he said, "I've spent a lot of time dealing with ghosts, and before that, a lot of time in the service. And let me tell you - these guys don't _feel_ like ghosts. They feel like an army."

The mayor met his eyes for a long moment, then swallowed. "Well," he whined, "whaddaya want me to do about it?"

"Calling up the National Guard again would be a start," Venkman began, but he was interrupted by a shriek below the window. Ray beat everyone else and pressed his face to the glass. "Uh-oh," he murmured. "They're starting to look a lot more solid."

The metallic clangs of marching boots rang up from the streets; in the distance, they heard a mechanical chant of "Delete, delete." Peter grimaced and mouthed "Too late" at the mayor.

Winston pulled back from the window and reached behind him. "Good thing we brought the packs with us," he muttered, as the hum-and-whine of the particle accelerator on his back shook the dust from the blinds.


	2. Unwrapping

Janine looked up, startled. "For me? I didn't get you anything."

"That's all right." Egon looked vaguely uncomfortable. "Consider it a late Hanukkah present."

"Ooh, is it gelt?" Janine brightened. "I could use some chocolate." She slid a long red fingernail underneath the blue ribbon and popped it off.

"Not exactly." Egon fidgeted as she removed the cream-colored paper and folded it neatly before opening the box.

She blinked. "It's - oh, Egon, are these real stones?" She uncoiled the necklace, polished blue against moonlight white spilling across her palm.

"Er, yes." Realizing he didn't know what to do with his hands, Egon clasped them behind him. "Lapis lazuli and freshwater pearls. It - I thought it matched your blue skirt nicely."

"It certainly does." She looked at each gem in turn, savoring the feel of them sliding through her fingers. As she reached the clasp, she turned towards the lockers. "Would you put it on for me, Egon?"

"It won't - oh, on you, yes, certainly." His hands trembled a bit as they brushed the back of her neck, hooking the silver bar through the circlet and arranging the string of beads symmetrically.

She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a hand mirror. Carefully, she looked at her reflection from several angles; he could see her eyes reflected clearly. Wait, by the laws of optics didn't that mean she was looking at him?

"It's gorgeous," she murmured as she snapped her mirror closed. "Thank you, Egon."

"You're welcome," he murmured. Very briefly, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against her forehead.

She reached up, grabbed one lapel, and planted a kiss directly on his mouth. As he blushed furiously, she looked over his shoulder and yelled up the firepole, "And if you four have a camera when I get up there, I'm going to kick every one of you down the stairs. Even Slimer."

"No cameras, Janine, we promise," Ray called back over Peter's inarticulate protest and Winston's guffawing. Egon raised one hand to his mouth and smiled despite himself.


	3. Unread

"I told you we shouldn't have sent him to the library by himself," Janine grumbled as they picked their way through the stacks. " 'Print is dead,' my ass. He just doesn't read _fiction_. He could stay down here forever."

Peter sighed. "Yeah," he agreed, "I don't think he likes reading as a hobby, exactly, but he'll tear through three or four technical manuals in a night." He adjusted the ecto-goggles as they threatened to slip down the side of his head; they were always better adjusted for Ray's.

Janine peered around both corners as they came to a T-intersection in the shelving. "Oh, there he is," she announced. "Dr. Spengler! We've been looking for you for an hour!"

"Egon, why haven't you answered your pager?" Peter complained. "And why are you reading with the lights off . . . ?"

"Oh, no," Janine murmured into the dark alcove, swallowing. She took a step back, almost involuntarily.

Peter stopped at her shoulder, his eyes following her gaze. "Uh, what's up with his hair?" he whispered.

Egon's hair was nearly vertical at the best of times, but now it stood straight up, as if he were standing in a wind tunnel. Slowly, Spengler turned to face them, his face utterly impassive; something cold and blue glimmered from his eyes, like sunlight reflecting from a glacier. He raised one hand, mechanically; a hefty tome rose trembling from the table and hovered just behind it.

"Egon, please -" Janine's plea was interrupted by the book flinging itself at her as if it had been fired from a Gauss cannon. She was blown back into the shelves behind her; her head impacted the wood with a _thump_ , and she slid to the floor in a papery avalanche.

"Janine!" Peter yelped; he darted over to her. Oh, good, she was still conscious. His eyes flicked back to Egon. "Hey, Egon, ol' buddy, that was not so cool, there, I mean -"

A cold, cruel, leering grin spread across Egon's face, simultaneously both utterly him and completely foreign. A breeze rippled through the room, shuffling pages and sending goosebumps down Venkman's arms. As Peter met Egon's glowing gaze again, Spengler whispered a single word: "Run."

For the second time in his life, Peter flew out of the doors of the New York Public Library, screaming. He was two blocks away when he realized Janine wasn't behind him.


	4. Unobserved

"I swear it wasn't me," Ray protested, hands up in front of him.

Janine harrumphed. "Well, it wasn't Dr. V or Slimer, either," she pointed out. "I can't believe Egon would do that, even by mistake, and Winston almost never goes in there."

"Never goes in where?" Winston asked, stepping off the basement stairs.

"Oh, hi, Winston," Ray said, clearly glad to not be the sole focus of Janine's attention. "Apparently someone spilled soda in the broom closet and didn't clean it up."

"It's a sticky mess," Janine groused. "Looks like it's been there a few days; it's dried up except for the middle."

Winston stopped to think. "Well, Pete doesn't usually drink soda; he's a coffee kind of guy. That's sort of Egon's drink of choice, isn't it?"

"But he's too anal-retentive to spill a soda and not mop it up," Ray said, as Janine nodded in agreement. "Has anyone else been in there in the past couple of days?"

"I have, but I haven't had a soda in the last two days, and the last one I had in here was diet anyway," Janine answered. She glared at Ray. "You had a can down here when you were fixing the dent in Ecto's bumper yesterday."

"But I finished it, and I took the can out to recycling," Ray insisted.

Winston frowned, glancing around the back end of the first floor. "Are you sure it wasn't Slimer, then?" he asked. "He seems to be the only suspect with a motive and no alibi so far."

"There's no ectoplasm on the can, or on the door, or the doorknob," Janine said, shrugging.

The sound of feet on the stairwell interrupted Winston's next thought. "Has anyone seen my turkey sandwich? It seems to have gone missing," Egon asked. "Failing that, has anyone seen Slimer recently?" He paused, glancing at each of them in turn. "Is everything okay down here?"

Janine looked thoughtful for a moment, stood up without answering, walked over to the broom closet, unlocked the door, and looked in. "Yeah," she said slowly, "I think it might be. What are you working on, again?"

Egon looked confused. "It's intended to be a teleportation device," he answered, "but so far nothing that I've put in the field has gone anywhere."

"You might want to check where your field focus is," Janine said as she stepped back out of the broom closet, holding a turkey-on-rye wrapped in deli paper. "By any chance, did you lose a can of soda on Tuesday?"


End file.
